This just in from Patrick Heller writing for Numismaster.com

Did U.S. Export Over 175 Million Ounces of Gold?

So, for 2007 and 2008 combined, the U.S. exported 22 million ounces of refined gold and over 154 million ounces of “compound gold.” This is more than 11 times U.S. gold mine production during those two years. In fact, this is higher than global gold mine output. Where did all this gold come from?

This amount of gold exceeds what is held by all private parties in the U.S. combined. When the U.S. government called in gold in 1933, it then melted down the coins without refining. As a result, such bars from the coin melt would have a purity of around 90 percent gold. These would not qualify for description as refined gold, but could fit the definition of compound gold.

In the past few years, several gold traders have commented that a surprising number of coin melt gold bars were being delivered in London and Zurich markets, bars which almost certainly came from the U.S. Treasury vaults.

It is possible that some of these gold exports could be the repatriation of foreign central bank gold that had been stored with the New York Federal Reserve. Such transfers would be classified as “exports” for purposes of this report. The other possibility is that it could be gold formerly held by the only central bank in the world that had that much gold - the United States.

Wherever this gold came from, it is bad news for the U.S. government. If foreign central banks are pulling their gold reserves out of storage in the U.S., that signals lost faith in U.S. financial strength, which the U.S. government would not want the general public to learn about. If the U.S. government has actually been exporting its own gold, while still trying to pretend that the quantity in its vaults is unchanged, confirmation of such exports would clobber faith in both the U.S. government and the dollar.

The U.S. government has not had a genuine audit of its gold holdings in decades. In recent years, it has changed the description of gold holdings in reports so that now it is only described as “custodial gold” rather than gold reserves.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=6745

That seems to answer a lot of questions, here is GATA’s web site http://www.gata.org

============MORE FROM RAPIDTRENDS============

http://www.rapidtrends.com/2009/05/31/us-gold-going-or-completely-gone/

The Implications

Ladies and gentlemen, the foregoing data and discussion with the USGS individual is proof that the United States of America [or criminal elements within its Treasury and/or The Federal Reserve] “HAS” surreptitiously exported physical gold - and continues to do so. It is confirmed. The exports are likely coin melt [or gold compound, if you prefer] from the great gold confiscation back in 1933; or alternatively, this terminology is being used to disguise physical repatriation of foreign gold bullion formerly on deposit with the N.Y. Federal Reserve. Such repatriations are recorded as “exports” in U.S. Trade data. Public acknowledgement of same would scream like a siren call that the global financial community has totally lost faith in American financial stewardship – hence the need to do so on the sly.

This is being done in a vain/desperate/losing battle to satiate “off the charts” global demand for physical gold bullion arising from the profligacy of the American Empire’s two previous Administrations and to prop up the failing U.S. Dollar.

Over the course of 2007 / 2008 – more than 5,000 metric tonnes of “Gold Compounds” have been exported from the United States of America representing more than 62 % of reported sovereign U.S. gold reserves or about 24 times annual U.S. mine production.